I began this work in 2010 as an exploration into a peaceful world I could escape to within the confines of London. Living in the capital can be isolating, where surrounded by people and an excess of information, can be an exhausting experience. A place to escape without having to travel too far is invaluable.

Having been brought up in a town whereupon I could cross the road outside our house, walk down a small alley lined by Dutch Elm trees into a magical world of overgrown fields littered with the remnants of old glasshouses, I have for some time been fascinated by old industrial buildings, the detritus and detail and roughness that goes with them, combined with a strong affection towards nature in it’s most disorganised sense. A combination of the two becoming a mixture I find incredibly alluring, but also with a deeply ingrained attachment I have from childhood.

Two miles from where I live in East London, the Lea Navigational Canal begins as a straight stretch of water known as Limehouse Cut, at Limehouse, and snakes it’s way through East London towards the M25 and beyond. The confines of this work are within these two boundaries.

Just past Thee Mills in Bow, with a background of lush vegetation in front of old industrial warehouse buildings, somewhat poetically, graffiti which makes up the title of this work appeared on the canal wall, while the area was filled with bright green duckweed. Soon after this, work began on the development of many stretches of the waterway, which each month becomes more and more filled by residential flats. A project that had been about beauty in decaying architecture vying for space with nature, had become about transience and how we are losing these spaces in the name of gentrification, as if that were preferable.

Selected images from Michael’s The Grass Is Always Greener series are shown below (click to view image at full size / format)

ABOUT MICHAEL KEMP

Michael Kemp (b. Kenilworth, Warwickshire 1969). After studying photography at Exeter College of Art and Design, Michael began working as an editor in the world of photojournalism agencies in 1994. He moved to China to live and work in 2002, where he had his solo show ‘Found Works One’ at Eastlink Gallery in Shanghai. Then returning to London, in 2009 set up as a freelance documentary stills photographer.

He makes much of his living from both documentary photography and as director and editor for In Pictures, an independent photo agency.

Throughout this time, Michael has pursued many personal projects all of which follow the common thread transience. The landscape projects focus on how industrial landscape interacts with nature, while other projects are abstract works with a particular influence coming from abstract expressionist painting. Others follow a particular collection of objects.

Each project has a different and specific technical approach outlined from the beginning, to contain the work visually within it’s own parameters. Perhaps inevitably, the theme of documentary continues to follow all of his work.

 

Website: michaelkemp.net
Instagram: @michaelkemp__

 

CREDITS

Unless otherwise stated, all words and images in this article are © Michael Kemp

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